Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, May 15

• Extortionists Mount Global Hacking Attack Seeking Ransom: Extortionist hackers who may be using leaked computer exploits from the U.S. National Security Agency infiltrated computers in dozens of countries in a fast-spreading attack that forced British hospitals to turn away patients and breached systems at Spain’s Telefonica SA and organizations from Russia to Taiwan. The ransomware used in Friday’s cyber-attacks encrypts files and demands that victims pay $300 in bitcoin for them to be decrypted, the latest in a vexing style of security breaches that, at the very least, forces organizations to revert to backup systems to keep critical systems running. The malicious software has infected more than 75,000 computers in 99 countries worldwide on Friday, most of them concentrated in Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan, according to Dutch cybersecurity company Avast Software BV. While the victim tally is likely to grow, the ransomware, called WanaCrypt0r, only affects computers that haven’t applied Microsoft’s two-month-old fix, a reminder that individuals and organizations that don’t routinely update their machines are vulnerable. Hospitals are notoriously slow in applying security fixes, in part because of how disruptive it is to take patient-facing equipment and databases offline. That has made them a reliable target of ransomware and identity-theft attacks, and why they routinely fall victim even to random mass attacks.

• Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo is teaming up with Lyft: Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent company Alphabet, is teaming up with Lyft to work on bringing autonomous vehicle efforts to market, the New York Times reports. Details on what this partnership entails remain a little fuzzy, but sources told Times reporter Mike Isaac the two companies would be working together on pilot projects and product development efforts. That's another way of saying Lyft users in some markets will likely be able to hail a Waymo self-driving car in a limited test sometime down the road. This is not Lyft’s only partnership aimed at bringing self-driving technology into the mainstream. Lyft has a partnership with GM, which last year acquired self-driving startup Cruise. Alphabet was also experimenting with its own ride-hailing app — which the company has been using in its first pilot program in Arizona. But it's not likely the company would solely depend on either that app or the ride-matching service Waze, another Alphabet subsidiary, has been experimenting with to give consumers access to self-driving cars. That’s largely due to the difficulty of gaining market share in the already crowded ride-hail industry — an issue Lyft, the perennial runner up to Uber, knows all too well. The relationship between Uber and Alphabet has gone from tense to combative in the past year. It was long-rumored that the two players would work together on an network of autonomous cars but Uber decided to navigate that road on its own making a competitor of Alphabet as both companies vyed for automaker partnerships. This is just the latest in a series of blows to Uber’s and Waymo’s once potentially fruitful relationship.